astronaut cady coleman is going to work on the space station. her commute?straight up on russia's soyuz. if the shuttle was the cadillac of space transport, the soyuz is the honda civic. coleman has a poetic way of saying "it is rather cramped." >> here you are with a window just six inches from your face. it's a very intimate way to be in space. >> reporter: now that soyuz is the only way for u.s. astronauts to travel up and down, nasa keeps a full-time manager at russia's space complex near moscow-- commander mark polanski, who lives in a suburban-style home built especially for visiting americans. he was an air force officer back when the u.s. and the then- soviet union were battling for space supremacy. >> i was a fighter pilot back when the cold war was still going on and if anybody had told me back then when i was flying f-15s that i would be living with my family in russia i'd have never believed them in a million years. >> reporter: 1957, the soviets launched the sputnik satellite and the space race. >> the first man in space. >> reporter: four years

talked to cady coleman about her physics experience, she wasn't great at physics earlier.perhaps my future would have been different had i talked to katie years ago. back over to you. >> she recouped she was at first m.i. t. getting into m.i.t. must be a sign of knowledge and science, no way i could have done that. >> chemistry i love, it doesn't mean it's not for you. about means you've got to work harder at it. >> too hard for me to contemplate working. the final launch of the space shuttle, not end of space travel. we'll talk about the future of space exploration. john elden, vice president of boeing and john zarrella joins me and cady coleman, astronaut. what was it like for you? >> an emotional thing. i was with a group of engineers who had been working on the shuttle through its life and we all had tears in our eyes as the shuttle went up. punched through the clouds. >> incredible. >> and it was just a really emotional setting. >> we focus on four astronauts on board. but they are there because of thousands of other people who had been working tirelessly for years on